Hell's Assassins
by Flint and Feather
Summary: Rival princes of Sheol strike contracts with lesser demons to descend to earth, and seize the Right Hand of Doom. Movieverse. M for fight action. M for loving. Please read and review!
1. Chapter 1 Demon Capture

**Disclaimer: **Hellboy, Liz Sherman, Abe Sapien and the B.P.R.D. are owned by creator Mike Mignola for the comics, and by screenwriter/director Guillermo del Toro for the feature films. Only my original characters and story are from my imagination.

* * *

**Demon Capture**

It was just before 2 a.m. Hellboy, bored on the road without company, joined his B.P.R.D. driver in the cab of the garbage truck. He grumbled over the effort of accommodating his tail to the passenger seat, gave his back a relieving twist, then looked over at agent Leach.

"Bad sleep in the cargo hold?" Leach asked.

"Full of bumps," Red answered, "Ever tried it?"

"My job is up here, being clear-eyed, double-clutching, honking the horn," chuckled Leach.

"Since you're here, Red, give me the 411 on your old case." Leach could get bored alone, too.

"You remember last month," began Hellboy, "how about two thousand animals were killed around and beyond Newark? It happened over less than a week, began and ended."

"What about civilian law enforcement?"

"They freaked after gutted big carcasses were found on rooftops, high up in trees, and stuffed into random vehicles."

"How big?" Leach was intrigued by the bizarre tale.

"Big like cows, horses, pigs, bear and deer," Hellboy said, "big like nothing from earth could be doing it."

"Murdered dogs, cats, and on and on?" mused Leach, "Any progress?"

"Forensically, the bad guy is built for slice and dice. I need more, but I've been bumped to these other jobs."

"I'm glad to be heading home," Leach droned without energy. "How far back are the others?"

"I'll find out," offered Red. But an agent's incoming signal beat him to it.

"Sutton," he acknowledged, "What's going on?"

"Elder and me, we're okay, but delayed," agent Sutton explained, "We just witnessed a crash, a man left for dead on the road. We chased down the hit and run driver. Got him pinned in our truck."

"Call the troopers and an ambulance," Hellboy suggested, wondering at the odd tone of Sutton's voice.

"First, we need you back here. The victim is – kind of a man, still alive but pretty badly injured. Not human. He could be one of our targets. We need the garbage truck."

Hellboy frowned. "Yeah?"

"There's kind of a horse that was killed here, too," Sutton finished, sounding like he couldn't quite believe what he was saying. "Kind of a horse," Hellboy repeated, "Kind of a man. We'll head back. So where are you?"

"Entrance of the Weequahic Park golf course," Sutton informed.

"When I get there," directed Hellboy, "you and Elder head out of sight of me with your prisoner, call the troopers and turn him over. You'll be busy helping that investigation for awhile."

"But the troopers will want to look at the scene," worried Sutton.

"And nobody will know who took the victim away, right? Handle it."

Leach sighed, "Got to find an acre to turn this rig around..."

Agent Elder greeted the arriving garbage truck with waving arms, and hurried to the rear to see Hellboy.

"The creature guy is lying there," he pointed, "and his condition now, is no worse than when we found him. About twenty feet from him, that – dead horse."

Hellboy readied his spotlight. "First, give all your Bureau gear to Leach," he instructed, "and get going."

Elder sprinted over to Sutton to collect his badge and weapons and returned to put them and his own, into Leach's hands. He ran back, jumping into the back seat behind Sutton to keep guard on the arrested driver. "Go back to where we left this joker's SUV, then call the cops" he said. "That's enough time for you-know-who to get clear."

"Good," slurred the drunk driver, "Take me to my car. I left my Jack in there."

Sutton smirked. Seemed the drunk would be friendly enough until he saw what was coming to him. "Just don't puke in my truck."

* * *

Together at the edge of the dark road, Hellboy and Leach approached the groaning figure with a backboard. At the first wash of artificial light, the victim rolled with a sharp cry onto his side, stretching one long-haired arm in the direction of the animal, his voice incoherent with grief.

Hellboy recognized a demon type. "This is too convenient," he alerted Leach.

"Never mind that, now," Hellboy told the demon, unsure of his understanding, "We're moving you."

"What _is_ he?" Leach wondered aloud, placing the board by his side.

"He ain't the Jersey Devil," quipped Hellboy, sliding his hands under the shivering victim's spine and shoulders. The dusky skin was covered with thick, spotted golden down that somewhat hid the definition of hardened musculature, and he wore little but an arrangement of leather-like strapping.

"How would a guy with these backward knees, sit a horse?" Leach asked.

"Look out for the teeth," cautioned Hellboy, "and pointy claws."

Shifting his body to the backboard, Hellboy and Leach carried him into the rear of their truck. Giving Leach a 'stay wary' glance, he handcuffed one of the creature's wrists to a floor-bolted bench.

"Watch him from out here," he told Leach, "I'm goin' for the other body."

It didn't take long. What lay against the fence might at some time have been a live horse. Now Hellboy was looking over the smashed heavy-boned skeleton of one, with highly decorated tack scattered beside it and tangled in its rib cage He picked up a blanket covered with heraldic embroidery, a glittering bridle and reins, and tossed them onto the dry bones. The carcass had left behind no flesh, blood or gore. Hoisting the skeleton onto his shoulders, Hellboy strode to the truck and tossed it inside.

Climbing in, he signalled Leach to drive. Seated on the bench to which the creature was bound, Hellboy studied him closely. His eerie silvery pupils were turned toward the deceased horse while he muttered in a broken, mourning whisper. With his free furred and clawed hand, he scratched his shaggy mane to fall across his muzzle and eyes, shutting out the light.

Judging by the swelling and twisted appearance, Hellboy figured that the demon's pelvis must be fractured. When he stretched back his head and scowled, he bared the white points of his fangs. From the outside, it didn't look like he'd bleed to death.

"I want to know, who are you?" Hellboy began, scoping him out, but the answer was rambling, spoken in several other-level languages. Hellboy's expression hardened.

"Seeker – wouldn't take warning," gasped the injured one, taking a gulp of air before every scratchy, hoarse phrase. "When he knew he was broken – dying, he gave me leave – and I set him free."

"Sorry, about your ride," Red replied, not liking the way this was shaping up.

"Your life, that could have been mine," was his rambling, whispered thought. His eyes flew open with alarm as Hellboy stood up to remove his coat, towering over him and uncovering his heavy hand cannon. But the coat was thrown to the bench without threat.

"You'll give me your name," Hellboy bristled, "and why you're here!"

The creature yanked at the handcuff with contempt and looked away. Speech and intelligence weren't adding up to cooperation. Hellboy hated interviewing.

"What do you eat?" Red tried, just as impatiently.

"Blood, heartsss," was the readily offered answer.

"Killing lots?"

"The prey is so weak, so slow."

"What's your prey?"

"All of them."

"How many legs," Hellboy questioned.

"Four - legs."

"Killed any two-leggers – the humans?"

"They – are slower still."

"Except for the ones on wheels," Hellboy prodded. "What were you going to do to them?"

"The hard shell wastes my time." He was answering defiantly now, though flinching when the ride turned rough.

"Did you kill and eat soft-shell two-leggers?"

"No need," he replied, "but if ever there is nothing else..."

It was oddly honest enough, and a good fit. His 'old' investigation had revealed no human victims.

"You came away from hell, just to hunt four-leggers?"

"Do you not eat them, too?" The furface was getting smart-ass.

"How many of you, here, right now?" Red pressed on.

"And, how many do you name on this world?" the captive retorted.

Hellboy had to consider, it might be naive to think that all paranormals knew each other.

"Answer me!" he thundered.

The creature then looked boldly at Hellboy, and in a voice rough with pain, erupted with all his waning strength, "Your life that could have been mine! Anung un Rama, will you kill me?!"


	2. Chapter 2 Demon Chang'ur

**Demon Chang'ur**

Hellboy glowered back with lethally blazing eyes and put away the shock of hearing _that_ name, with his indignant brash bite. He leaned down to growl, **"**_I_ ask the questions!"

Hellboy straightened his back and leaned his stone arm across his thigh, inwardly cursing that he had been recognized by someone familiar with his hell-region origins. It was never predictable if or when any investigation could become a dredge into his own oppressive demonic 'destiny' as bringer of the apocalypse. When he came under target for this, nothing else could fill him with more troubling dread. "Like the work, hate the fame," he admitted silently.  
"You'll answer to 'Rider'," he ordered the captive.

The shackled demon went limp. He was in no shape to argue.

* * *

Hellboy signalled Leach in the cab. "Wake up Manning, and tell him to meet us at Plan B."

"Red," yawned Leach, shifting gears, "I wish you didn't outrank me. Thanks a lot!"

"I'm in for my share of it, Bud."

Plan B, the outbuilding reserved for classifying, appraising and locking down threats that shouldn't get exposure to the main B.P.R.D. headquarters, was half as well equipped. Hellboy kept guard on Rider while the rear door was opened. Sure enough, Tom Manning came padding in his slippers to the garbage truck, wearing his suit coat over a pyjama top.

His mouth curdled as he took in the sight of Hellboy's latest supernatural collection. Red put his finger to his lips and crouched down in front of Manning at the top of the ramp.

"What in hell did you drag home?!" Manning spat in a hoarse whisper. "What kind of animal is that?"

"He's the killer, and now, I've got him," Hellboy told the boss. "It's interrogation time."

"That thing talks? You should have let him die!" Manning insisted sourly.

"So far, he's too strong to die. Nobody outside but a cross-eyed drunk saw him. This is a research unit, so authorize the expenses!" retorted Hellboy.

"You brought that man-rug - you stick with him!" Manning ordered, "Here! For as long as it takes!"

Leach sidled up to Hellboy, watching Manning stomp away to his own comfy car. "Now you've done it, Red," he teased.

"Yeah. Price of the party. Take the bones and stuff to the lab and ask Abe to look it over." Hellboy went back to Rider's side to unlock his cuff, seeing medics pushing a gurney his way. "I gotta bodyguard the doctors." He beckoned Leach closer to whisper, "Do me a favour and sneak in a couple of six-packs?"

Leach winked and headed for his driver's seat.

* * *

Rider, being rolled to examination, watched Hellboy walking alongside, wondering at the highly-placed demon who interacted so easily with powerless, inferior humans, and even protected them. Hellboy's yellow eyes were now sternly analyzing Rider's face as the gurney came to a halt in a brightly lit room - the last thing Rider saw before an injection of sedative gave him peace.

With Rider knocked out, Hellboy assigned a technician to cast moulds of his paws and teeth.

* * *

"Setting fractures on a paranormal vertebrate," marvelled surgeon O'Neal, studying X-ray images, "without knowing if he can tolerate our drugs. Good thing he didn't need blood." He turned to Hellboy.

"What's his age, Red?"

"Don't know, Doc, but I think he's way beyond a kid. Check his teeth."

Obligingly, Dr. O'Neal examined. "Omigawd!" he exclaimed. "You're going to handle this guy?"

"He won't be much trouble in a body cast, but if he's anything like me, could be just days."

"I can't tell you if he's a fast healer. His pelvis was in pieces, like his ribs and a shoulder."

"I'm just learning about him myself, Doc. Manning thinks we'll all be sorry," responded Hellboy, looking over Rider, unconscious in recovery.

The Doc nodded. "He needs a more conventional job, for sure."

* * *

Three hours later, exhausted agents Sutton and Elder appeared at Plan B to give their report to Red.

"The cops were satisfied that we were just conscientious citizens who can't be expected to know procedure," said Elder. "They seized the drunk's vehicle, had us show them the empty collision scene. There was enough fur stuck in the grille, to decide that the crash victim was some kind of animal. They'll search farther around to make sure, but-"

"We took a bigger problem off their hands," Red concluded for him.

"They wrote up our witness depositions, thanked us for the citizen's arrest," added Sutton. "Unless a deal is cut, we could be called in for the DWI trial."

"Thanks for playing along," grinned Red.

* * *

Hellboy was bored out of his mind by the crack of noon. Though Rider was shackled to the floor and encased in a body cast in a barred cell, Red was never supposed to be far from him. Taking several hours to return to consciousness, Rider was far from helpless. Watching him eat by filling his padded palms with food and mashing it into his short muzzle, was the only amusement about him. He so wildly protested having the smears and dribbles washed out of his fur, that the staff left him alone with his repulsive ripeness, to groom himself as well as he could, with his own tongue.

A visit from Abe Sapien early in the afternoon was welcome and informative.

"Red, I've studied the skeletal structure and furnishings of the horse, especially the blanket," said Abe. "It carries no goetic seal within the embroidery. It seems our friend intends not to be identified."

"He clammed up," replied Hellboy, "after he called me the name I never wanted to hear again."

"It's disturbing that he knows you," Abe empathized, "but this is also. My reading reveals that the 'seeker horse' has been in its present state for some eons. It and Rider roamed this area weeks ago, deliberately leaving signs of large carnivore kills – and carrying portions of the kills to feed other entities concealed in the Pine Barrens. Alarming enough for the population that hundreds of domesticated and wild animals were found torn apart during those days, but after creating the panic, our suspect retreated from notice for a time - then on return, descended from the thermosphere directly into the path of approaching agents Sutton and Elder, where you had earlier passed. He apparently couldn't prevent collision with a rogue vehicle."

"Or wouldn't," suggested Red, "Was he scheming to meet up with us?"

"That much is unknown," Abe replied, "_and_, oddly, the bones of the seeker have since crumbled to ash in the laboratory."

"He wanted us to notice him," granted Hellboy. "He's got it."

* * *

"Beyumé!" It was a cry of delirious torment from Rider, as he wrenched at his restraints in his sedated haze.

"Abe, watch and listen at the one-way," Red requested, before going to unlock Rider's cell.

Startled awake, he opened his eyes to the figure of Hellboy near his bed.

"What did you say?" questioned Hellboy.

Rider took shallow breaths before rasping, "Starvation..."

"Start convincing me – why are you here?"

"Will you kill me-" the abrupt, forceful point of Hellboy's stone finger cut him off.

"Will you get off that stick?!" Hellboy demanded.

"I – hardly understand your speech." Rider frowned his confusion.

"Why," Hellboy started over, "do you keep asking me?"

"You've given me no answer."

"If you were dangerous to my people, I would, yeah."

Rider wrinkled his brow. "Your people – but no one here is like you."

"Right." Hellboy was giving him nothing to learn.

Rider closed his eyes and turned away. "I offer no danger. You should know that I've had the strength since the last turn of the sun, to tear these bonds and shatter this shell imprisoning me. I would gain your trust."

"Why's that?"

"An age ago, I tried to follow your escape through a portal to this plane. You were much too young to know me, to understand. I was slave to jealous Andros, and failed his command to drag you back. If I had been lost, it would be no matter. In the torment of my low-caste captivity, I heard talk of you and I envied, hated you."

Hellboy concealed his rising venom at hearing the despised name of any Prince of Sheol.

"But no more. I refused to accept that I couldn't escape, couldn't die. The Master committed me to this finite body and banished me to my own devices in the Dark Energy. And my mate, as well, has been scattered to the winds. My Seeker, my only companion in my wandering search, is gone back to dust. Stealing him, losing him, forces me to redeem myself in the Master's eyes."

"You want me to believe this story of your wonder years, and that you rode a rustled hell-horse through a golf course at night?" Hellboy asked with sarcasm.

Again, Rider looked quizzical.

"The green space," clarified the agent.

"It was open, free, barren..." he mused at the memory.

"And what do you _really _want here?" Hellboy pressed.

"I succeeded in bringing _you _to my side," Rider said with an imploring stare. "I felt a true sense of you, coming upon the humans on their way to you. I was intent to follow, and in the next instant, found myself smashed to the ground."

A suppressed chill coursed through Hellboy.

"If only I reclaim her," Rider choked sadly with downcast gaze, "we will never suffer under the Master again."

"You're playing too innocent," Hellboy judged, "Everything you just said, is a lie."

"Have you – wives?..." Rider asked, clearly fishing for a friendly common ground.

"Shut up," Red snapped, wheeling to leave.

"Don't!" Rider cried out to him, "I want only a way to go to Beyumé! My wife!"

Hellboy stopped.

"Your life is here, where my seeker led me. She is here, lost in a vastness. I, Chang'ur, craved to be your brother! I would have served you! Help me!"

Hellboy heard the declaration and strident plea in hard disbelief. "Chang'ur", he said, "I'll never trust you."

"I _will_ prove myself," Chang'ur persisted with alarm, as Hellboy turned from him and locked the bars. "I _will_ serve you."

* * *

Rejoining Abe, Red gritted, "He talks like a poet and stinks like a polecat. And now, there could be two of them."

"I have the sense of an advance agent," Abe offered, "an inept one. He gives scattered motives for his presence, but asks you to perform a task."

"Pretty lame, right? He said he was a low caste slave and got on the wrong side of his master. And he talks like he wants to stay with me! What's he look like to you, Abe?"

"He looks like...a two hundred pound hyena-cat," opined the merman. "How does the demon prince Andros figure into this?" Abe wondered, as he strolled with his friend to the exit.

"He's - kind of my uncle," was Hellboy's reluctant answer.

"Red," he entreated, "please don't ever be alone with this creature."

* * *

All they had were video talks while he was forced to live at Plan B, and Hellboy explained to Liz why he wouldn't allow her near Chang'ur. No curiosity was worth the risk. She wasn't to be there for any reason. He stressed it well enough that she accepted the ban.

But today, she planted a rush in him when she closed with, "The minute you get back here, you'd better be ready for me!"

* * *

Some hours after Abe's departure, Hellboy returned to the cell, locked himself in and walked to the captive's bedside. He carried a large slab of raw meat which he tossed onto Chang'ur's chest.

"Brother!" exclaimed the patient, seizing the meat with energy and tearing off a ragged mouthful, "I had thought you lost to the world of Man!"

"You want to serve me?" Hellboy challenged. "You're hiding something in the Barrens. Tell me what, where."

Continuing to savage the meat, Chang'ur stopped to look up with thin blood staining his jaws.

"Follow the lightning by the water. Bring me the female and destroy the spawn!"

Crossing his arms, Hellboy fixed Chang'ur with a potent glare. "Get free. I'm waiting."

Chang'ur's face took on a steely determination, and he gave his chains a thrash before jerking mightily at the floor brackets. No effect. He began to smash at his body cast with his wrist manacles, causing minor cracks. He pulled, beat, lashed and dragged until his rage exhausted him.

Hellboy looked him up and down. "You're nobody. You can't even get out of bed," he jeered.

"My Master demands, his own son will honour the sacred mission of the Beast. I'll have the ransom to assure, it will not be so. You guard the Right Hand of Doom and I will rip it from you!" Chang'ur spat, desperate anger rising. "Azzael, another prince of my choice to receive it, will grant me the life of a noble."

"All full of yourself, now?" Hellboy shot back, "When's the last time you fed the spawn?"

Badly surprised, Chang'ur clenched his jaw, unprepared for the discovery of his secret treachery.

"If you could get what you want, you'd leave the wife behind. And how would you get home? I want you gone, no matter how, and you're going away with nothing. Son of Andros could be dead by now, and his daddy will know what you did," taunted Hellboy. "You think a low-rent like you, won't get hurt playing the princes against each other?"

"Your last breath," Chang'ur panted through his fiercely arched muzzle, "is mine..."

Red's stone fingers waved him onward.

Howls vibrated the bars, as Chang'ur flexed, bursting apart all that bound him. Shards of iron shrapnel split the air in all directions, pinging from the cinder block walls, and tearing into Hellboy's skin. "You came without weapons, Anung un Rama!" he revelled, shrugging off his chunks of plaster cast as his clawed feet touched down. Hellboy's stone arm stretched out toward the approaching demon, while his left hand reached into his shirt behind his neck.

Chang'ur snarled, mocking, "To kill you with my bare hands, will raise my price!"

"Up close – that's what I do!" Hellboy goaded, his bring-it-on scowl seething for battle.

The combatants hardly noticed the four agents who had raced up outside the bars, alarmed voices yelling Red's name, one using a remote to unlock the door.

"No fire!" commanded Hellboy, as leering Chang'ur made his rush. Red was ahead of Chang'ur's cat tactics when he sprang off the floor to attempt a gripping bite into Red's shoulder. Throwing down his stone arm, he stunned the lift of the hind claws that were cycling with the intent to disembowel him. The machete gripped in his left fist slashed down one side of the furred neck. Whirling the heavy blade with blurring speed, Hellboy chopped through again. Blood spurted to the walls and poured down Chang'ur's pelt as his head, barely attached, dropped forward. Red stepped away from the collapse of the corpse, and kept close watch until it's final jerks and pulses died away. He heard the agents jabbering over each other, but while concentrating, didn't answer.

"What the hell, Red!? Abe told us! Whaddya need? You're bleeding, man..."

Red grinned to ease their tension, then left the cell and locked it. "He's good there, for now."

Screwing up his face, agent Cole dithered, "That looks like a...a, uh – "

"A dead hyena-cat," Red suggested.

Looking Red over, agent Olsen's brows drew down. "You need to get metal dug out of you."

Hellboy shrugged, finding the surface of his stone arm studded with iron points.

"Lonely hero?" ventured agent Blake.

"To make him lose it, to prove he needed killin'. I was getting real tired of his company."


	3. Chapter 3 Demon Beyume

**Demon Beyum****é**

Agent Olsen couldn't stop apologizing to Hellboy that the guys hadn't been there faster to back him up, and that all he was doing now, was giving him a lift back to B.P.R.D. Headquarters.

"It was my plan to see what he had, Olsen. Forget it."

"We'll get the body squared away to autopsy," assured Olsen. "And Abe is waiting for you."

Hellboy's weary look at the agent signalled that this night and day was getting way too long. "One thing, important," he instructed. "Ask the tech to compare his casts to the wound evidence. He'll know."

"Done."

...

Red walked heavily to the medical wing, dragging his coat. Abe turned to him, his eyes widening at the sight of his blood-sprayed friend, his core and legs peppered with wounds.

"Can't we do this tomorrow, Blue?"

"Have you seen yourself?" countered Abe, taking a closer look, "and don't think of getting next to Liz with those." He began to scissor off Red's shirt.

"Oh, right. Go to it, doc," Hellboy relented.

"I'll gather what I need," said Abe.

While waiting, Red cleaned Chang'ur's rancid blood from his face, and used pliers to pull metal splinters from his stone arm. Abe gestured him to lie on the table for treatment.

"You", the merman observed, "are a pincushion." Each metal point clinked into a pan as Abe tweezed them out, several hundred from his frontal tough skin. Hellboy winced as the deepest were probed out to Abe's satisfaction. It took some time. "Your right hand shielded your head and neck, very good," Abe concluded, making a final examination. "How do you feel?"

"Tired, Blue. Tired." His hand closed on the vial of antibiotics offered.

"But there's more to do..."

"Finding this Beyumé, if she exists," Red sighed, sliding from the table.

"She's not accounted for, in my studies."

"A little search of the Pine Barrens should clear it up," Hellboy told his friend.

"The enormity of the Barrens forest!" retorted Abe. "A little search! There is no such thing."

"The spawn – Chang'ur meant for me to kill it. I'm not convinced that he wanted his wife back. If I know demon trade-ups - she wasn't needed after doing her end."

"A revenge on his master?" Abe speculated, "to be committed by you, and placing you in proximity of those whose mission it is to remove your stone hand. His thinking and behaviour were erratic, and the intent is too hideous – but-"

"Even dead, he's left it all with me," Hellboy cut in. "Hm, thanks for this, Brother." He pulled up and fastened his damaged leather.

"I'll walk with you before I go home," offered the merman, taking his place beside Red.

Arriving at his quarters, Red gave Abe his parting words. "Thanks for not yelling at me."

...

Finally home. If Liz hadn't been there, Red would have fallen into bed without the delay of a shower. Small sacrifice. He approached her in quiet, dropping his last damp towel to the floor. Settling under the covers close to Liz, he was careful not to wake her. But the new sensation of his heat drew her seeking fingers to his side, stealing across his chest and upward to his shoulder. Her arm slipped surely around his neck, her body creeping to close the last inch between them. Smiling at the warmth of her slow, sleeping breaths against his throat, Hellboy brought his left arm from beneath, to rest lightly on her hip. Not yet still, Liz bent her leg and slid it up to rest across his thighs. This was now, hands down, the best part of his day, but his restless mind replayed Chang'ur's words and searched for answers, annoying him away from sleep while another hour passed. If there was any threat to what he loved, he had to crush it, fast.

While wondering if he was staining the sheets from his hundreds of cuts, and if Liz had heard about the end of Chang'ur, he felt her shrug away from his arm, and slither down beneath the covers. She was in the mood to get her man's attention. She made no sound. By the time he felt her sipping little kisses down the side of his waist, he knew what was coming. Whenever Red thought of her this way, he found that thinking was impossible. Because of what she was doing now, in the dark, he hitched and gave out a shuddering gasp. The thrill was so deep and ravishing that he couldn't bear for her to stop, yet it almost panicked him at the same time, to escape. The delicate, moist swirling, the probing, the firm pressure and sensual slide - her every caress mastered the shallow rise and fall of his chest, his restrained moans. It was a sweet conflict in the way she took control, scattering his mind, along with his will to care that it was happening. His arms and legs faded from purpose, from conscious action. She could siphon away his mighty strength, this small woman, concentrating it all into a throbbing, heated center. Her soft arms circled beneath the small of his back, and clutching him to herself most possessively, Liz surged over him again and again until he could do nothing but strain toward her, and finally, exult in yielding to her. He threw up his arms to cross over his face, his fists clenching. Each stream forced from him, he writhed through in exhilarating pain – they hurt great. She lay holding him there, beyond the moments that his hard-flexed hips relaxed, and his breathing quieted.

While her own vitality was unchanged, Liz lay beside her depleted and sleep-deprived warrior. He reached to her face, his golden eyes closing down.

"I can't stay awake," he apologized, his voice hazy with contentment.

"Drift away, H.B." She kissed his cheek. "That's what afterglow is for."

He slept long, deep and dreamless, until the enticing aromas of a late breakfast wafted through the space. Liz had been up earlier to fill their order, and was bringing the food cart up next to the bed. She saw him awake, looking her way. As she climbed onto the bed carefully balancing a hot mug, Hellboy was ready to be his refreshed self.

"You have some days off," she said, pleased, "but don't think I'm going to pamper you."

He pulled himself up to take the coffee she offered. She closely studied his torso, her fingertips tracing the many new scars of his healed wounds. "Abe wants to see you later," she informed. "Did he get them all out?"

Hellboy nodded. "You know everything?" he asked.

"Of course," she said simply, "just like Abe."

"It isn't over, and it's complicated," he told her, with a heaviness sinking into him. "I have one dead demon perp for the animal cold case, but it was only a blind for what's coming-"

"Stop!" Liz insisted, gripping his hand. "Don't think about that now. You closed it fast – but you've been away a couple of tough days, figuring it out. He's gone. He's gone! Now it's our time."

She turned back to the cart for their breakfast plates, and set the first of them by him on the bed.

"You saw the corpse?" Red asked, knowing the answer.

"You finished the fight," she approved. "You had to."

"When he talked," Red went on, "he was all mixed messages. He wants to serve me, he wants to kill me. But this wife he's missing, I didn't get to find out what she's like."

"He could have been insane, or mind-controlled," Liz suggested, "and was absolutely meaning to use you. I'll go with you on it. A female point of view could be helpful."

"I'll give you that," he agreed, trying to stuff down his protective instinct. He had to keep seeing Liz as a full, competent agent – more than just his woman.

He breathed out a short laugh.

"What?"

"Do other couples eat breakfast shoptalking autopsies?"

"All the time," she smirked winsomely.

She resolved to keep Red's mind off trouble, giving direction to the staff that they were not to be disturbed, if at all possible. Her tough guy really needed to decompress, even if he didn't know it, or wouldn't ask. Sleep was sweet, and when he reached for her, she desired him with spirit. His courage and great heart made her proud to be his. With her close in his arms, he was anchored to a world of possibilities. Most cherished was time to keep intrusions away, to slowly build their passion, time to linger over sensuous longing, from the first brush of their lips. Their life breath mingling, they let their souls exhale and pass between them. Loving each other to a feverish hunger, they bonded their bodies in charged heat.

...

The middle of the next day found Red in the armoury annex, pressing cartridges and casting clear shells for his special bullets. He stocked up several varieties, filling them with customized holy water formulae. Agent Blake came in and approached the bench with an envelope.

"Your forensic report," said Blake, handing it over. He hung around to help Hellboy pack the shells into protective casings.

Red tore open the envelope and nodded to the agent. "Thanks."

"It took half a day to clean up the biohazard mess in the Plan B cell," Blake snickered.

"Is housekeeping mad at me?" chuckled Hellboy.

"We bagged the body fast, and lit out with it."

"Anything incoming?"

"Not so far. You're waiting for something related?"

"Bring me in," Hellboy directed, "Then I'll know."

"You'll be the first," Blake pointed, and headed out.

...

Red decided to drop in on Abe. He wasn't too surprised to find Liz in the library, poring over several open books, as the merman fetched more.

"We're doing deeper research into the names of Chang'ur and Beyumé," Abe explained, "but there are no references at hand."

Hellboy read a bit over Liz' shoulder. "A few of the book pictorials look something like the corpse," she said, spreading out a number of her own photos from pathology.

"Old hyena-breath wasn't looking too good there," breezed Red, studying the death images.

"I'm guessing that every demon isn't famous," Liz sighed, "and the names could be faked."

"And I'm not going to the source to find out," Red joked, smiling at his two favourite people. "You've been trying hard for me."

"Until my attention is otherwise urgently required," stated Abe, "I won't put this down. I'm quite fascinated." He tilted his head. "Liz, you needn't stay. I think you may have better things to do?"

"I could think of something," she answered, grasping Red's hand to lift herself from her seat on the rug.

Following Liz through the library door, he asked, "Want lunch?"

"Just a bite at the canteen."

When they had settled across from each other at a table, she resumed the topic. "I'm not really looking forward to finding this dame."

"I'm not," he said with certainty.

"Hyena-cat knowing you, worries me."

"I have fame and relatives in dark places," he conceded. "I can't change that." He looked at his mate with a stoic regret. Her look back at him was direct, accepting and sure, as she invited him to lean in closer to her. Pressing her hand over his, she whispered, "So what about the in-laws! You're here. You're with me."

His eyes glowed, quietly proud.

...

With their bits of information, it was possible to anticipate a sign. A night later, Pine Barrens wardens were overheard on scanner, investigating a disturbance off Lake Atsion. Reported fragments of misshapen lightning above the trees and skipping over the lake, had caused no harm and were no longer in sight while the wardens' boat search was underway.

Hellboy, Liz, and Abe, with a small contingent of regular agents, boarded the mid-sized helicopter to head out to the area.

"Sightings of 'ball' lightning," Abe informed, "have been claimed all over the globe since the last century, known in modern times to be unexplained as a meteorological phenomenon. It's reported to have been seen in many shapes, sometimes shooting skyward or hovering, sometimes running along the ground and in all levels in between. In our case, I hope it will be useful."

"Our arrival seems to have scared up something," alerted pilot agent Hayes, "on that rough shore. No houses."

"I see it. Get us as close as you can to the lightning," Hellboy instructed, carrying a compacted inflatable to the hatch. He deployed the twelve foot raft onto the lake and jumped out to splash down beside it. Holding it in place to catch the others, he waited for their safe landing and turned to to swim for the shore, hauling the loaded raft behind him. Soundless bolts of light soared low across the water. Hellboy touched ground and stood up.

"You can stop now," he called out. "I'm here."

The agents assembled on either side of him.

Another bolt illuminated, and fixed in place on the ground beside a four legged crouching entity.

"Show me Chang'ur!" demanded a crackling voice. Hellboy saw more it clearly then, an unnatural creature prone on the soil with part-reptilian head raised, not obviously female.

"He's not coming," answered Hellboy.

"Anung un Rama," she rasped in a welcoming tone, raising herself higher, "You brought meat to Beyumé." Her head waved from side to side, her jaws opening with pleasure at the sight of the humans.

"First" he said, "the spawn."

"Was I to starve?" she demanded, bitterly. "I carried here, the eighteenth son of the prince, in my body. The beast to replace _you_ was born, and grew strong while Chang'ur provided. Andros abandoned our contract, leaving me without my mate, without food. My signals for him went ignored, too long." She crept within several paces of Hellboy and rested on her front legs. She brought forward her long, muscular tail to wrap around her shoulders. "The young beast served a final use," she continued. "Look there."

Abe scanned his spotlight to a crumpled form and approached to examine it. As Beyumé shifted herself in Abe's direction, Hellboy stepped into her path, his eyes sternly warning her.

"It's a man-sized non-human, stripped of flesh!" reported Abe.

"This is one angry old lady," Red remarked, steadily watching her for aggression.

"Rasputin failed your father!" she hissed loudly to Hellboy. "You, the favourite son, failed him. When I bring to him your Right Hand, another will be chosen to own it, to complete the destiny that you refused."

"And what did he promise you for the double-cross?" Hellboy taunted. He heard his agents readying their weapons.

"Esteemed rank," she chortled, "a highly placed mate, slaves of my own. Now! Come to me." She peeled her lips back in a ghastly smile, to display her serrated instruments of amputation.

Red laughed, drawing the Samaritan. "Come and get it!"

With simmering consternation, Liz whispered low, "What are you doing?"

The boom of his firearm slowed Beyumé's skittering forward crawl, but it was the speed of her tail, lashing to wrap his gun hand, that wrenched him to his knees. Every agent scurried up, firing body shots, head shots, and pounding at the binding coil.

Beside him, Red heard Liz yell, "All of you, run!" It took a split second for her to duck under his arm, blazing with angry yellow flames. Pressing her back against him, she reached her hands out to Beyumé's advancing jaws, concentrating a blast of fiery combustion with all her might until the she-demon fell, sizzling and charred. Hellboy wrapped his arm around Liz before the explosive reaction blew them back. The first thing he felt after the initial stun, was the chill of lake water closing over them.

He pulled Liz up in the waist-deep water. "All here?" he called to the team, counting heads. He hugged her tight. "Aw, Babe.." Exhausted, Liz leaned into him while they looked toward the small inferno on the shore. The agents soaked their jackets and ran up to quench the flames dancing over the two corpses.

Hellboy thrashed his stone arm across the lake surface, raising a high arc of water to splash down over the burning trees. Again and again, he sent water cascading to the shore until only choking gray smoke rose from the scene.

With the helicopter returning, the team loaded the bodies into the raft and waded deeper, ready to secure them into the lowered cargo nets. Hellboy deflated the raft with speed while the others were hauled up.

"Was it good for you?" Red joked to Abe, awaiting his turn.

"A weedy, but refreshing lake," the merman replied, "and fortuitously located, protecting us from the combustive blow-back."

"Wardens are on the way," warned the pilot, "Let's get gone!"

"I'm okay," Liz assured Red, snuggled for warmth against his side on the flight home. He had found a blanket and wrapped her, to ward off the chill of her wet clothing.

"What did you think of that female?" he asked her.

"She incubated and birthed a demon child, and cannibalized him when there was nothing left to eat. She made a bargain to benefit herself. I'd say she was calculating, certainly not a mother."

"And not much of a grieving widow, either," Hellboy added. "I figure it this way - Chang'ur hunted and fed them both because he started out trusting in a reward for having his wife carry and deliver Andros' son. Betrayal is standard operating procedure. The deals fell apart, alliances to the princes got switched up, until it was every greed for itself. One plan worked out. They got me to come to her. The spawn was supposed to challenge me, not Beyumé."

He smiled down at Liz. "But I think she had the sharpest teeth for the job."

"Oh, Red, not funny!" she scolded gently. "So, he was alive five weeks, and the size of an average man. How big could he have been as an adult?"

Red shrugged. "What beings made him? Could be, I'll never know. Not much about them can be matched up to humans' way of being, thinking."

"It was her last opportunity to capitalize, to assure her own shaky future, and – _what _made you take the chance of waiting long enough for her to grab you? She was ready to chew you apart!"

"Not my game. Her back end was faster than her front. I'm thinking the head shot didn't put her down because most of her brain was low on her dinosaur spine. You're the one who took the chance, Babe," he whispered to her, lifting her chin to meet her eyes.

"I'm a B.P.R.D. agent, and your girl. Just try to stop me."

"You love me that much?"

"Better believe it."


End file.
